New Delhi, February 1 Though Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in his budget speech for 2017-18 on Wednesday said his proposals on excise and customs duties will not result in any significant loss or gain to the exchequer, the fine print suggests a host of items can become either cheaper or dearer. Items like LED lamps, solar panels, printed circuit boards for mobiles, micro ATMs, finger-print machines and Iris scanners will potentially become cheaper.

On the other hand, silver coins, cigarettes and tobacco, bidis, pan masala, goods imported through parcels, water filter membranes and cashew nuts will become dearer. “The Centre, through the Central Board of Excise and Customs, shall continue to strive to achieve the goal of implementation of GST (Goods and Services Tax) as per schedule without compromising the spirit of co-operative federalism,” Jaitley said while presenting the Budget. “Implementation of GST is likely to bring more taxes both to central and state governments because of widening of tax net. I have preferred not to make many changes in current regime of Excise and Service Tax because the same are to be replaced by GST soon,” he added. IANS